Posts tagged: "travel photos"

The city of Madaba in Jordan is located about 30 km from Amman (the capital city). Madaba is widely known as the City of Mosaic. The first mosaics apparently were discovered purely by chance during the building of permanent housings using squared-up stones from the old monuments. Once the people were made aware of the importance of these mosaics they made sure to take care and preserve all the mosaics that came to light.

Madaba is home to the famous 6th century Mosaic Map of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, the Madaba Mosaic Map. It’s made out of two million pieces of vividly coloured local stone that depicts hills and valleys, villages and towns as far as the Nile Delta. It covers the floor of the Greek Orthodox Church of St George, just northwest of the city centre. We visited the church right after our scrumptious lunch at Haret Jdoudna in Madaba. (Side note: Please go and enjoy some meals in this restaurant if you happen to be in the area. They serve great meal and the place is really unique. This is not a paid post, btw 😉 ).

St George church, which was built in 1896 AD, is not a very big church, but the amount of mosaics inside was quite impressive. The Mosaic Map was in the middle of the main floor of the church. The map was originally around 15.6 X 6m big, but only about a quarter of that size is preserved.

Map of Madaba, Jordan

As it is with most of the other places of worships I’ve been to, the church of st George is adorned by many beautiful ornaments and decorations, which are intricate, old and very special.

St George, Madaba, Jordan

These are some shots from outside the church.

My plan that day was to visit the major landmark in the area, the Sultan Mosque, and explore the surrounding area of Kampong Glam. It was another sensory overload kind of experience, that I never get tired of in Singapore. I got off my taxi one lane away from the mosque, and I passed many traditional business, selling carpets, textiles, and the widest selection of colourful cushion covers I’ve ever seen.

Masjid Sultan (Sultan Mosque) on Muscat Street is one of the most important mosque in Singapore. The mosque is open for visitors, so I went in. Like the Buddhist temple I visited recently, the mosque has a conservative dress code. If you are not dressed appropriately you need to wear some kind of cloak if you want to enter, and cloaks are available free of charge. Ok. I had to wear a cloak to enter that day. And, no, we are not going to talk about communal cloak again. I feel itchy just to think about it…

I believe this was my first time in a mosque, despite being born, grew up, and lived in Indonesia the first decades of my life. It was quiet inside the mosque, I was not there in any of the time of praying, and it was not a Friday. I enjoyed looking around, noticing all the intricate details, and feeling how airy it was inside. The visit to the Buddhist temple was still fresh in my mind, so it was interesting to see symbols and colours that were influenced by a totally different cultures and religious. They were so different, and yet equally powerful.

Here are images of the building and its surrounding.

The look from inside the mosque:

Half a block away from the mosque would take you to the Malay Heritage Centre. The centre was a total contrast to its surrounding. From the colourful shops, the loud noise, and variety of smell I passed, suddenly it was ‘quiet’. There was a big (clean and new-ish) yellow building in front of me, surrounded by a neatly mowed lawn and very well-trimmed trees, not a branch went astray, all around. It all looked almost sterile compare to the surrounding area. I did not remember the reason why now, but I decided not to go in the centre and continued on walking.

See you in part 2.

Tag Archives: travel photos

St George Church in Madaba, Jordan

Kampong Glam part 1